Dear Cis Sisters: Please Sit Down Before You Get Us Killed

Not All (cis) Women

Graphic by Stephenie, elements from selfie and a photo by
Andrej Lišakov on Unsplash

My recap series for the breakout new Amazon Studios show The Power is going great. In fact, I hit a surprising new benchmark as soon as people saw the first episode.

Tweet: “On this sacred #TransDayOfVisibility, let us pause to celebrate trans-identifying man Daniela Vega, who plays trans-identifying nun Sister Maria Ignacia in the screen adaptation of Naomi Alderman’s THE POWER. Which was, until 5 minutes ago, a novel about women.”

I kinda feel like I made it when bigots start referencing my work, even if it’s to support ridiculously transphobic tweets.

I really feel like I made it when Christina Dalcher, the author of the critically acclaimed and extremely transphobic novel Femlandia, pops up on Twitter to use The Power and my coverage of the book/show to score cheap shots on trans people and….what? Sell another copy of her book without a thought to the trans people her tweets get killed?

Femlandia (Berkley)

Her book is exactly what people are afraid The Power is. The concept and execution of Femlandia deliberately erases trans people, whereas Naomi Alderman wrote The Power and then worked with a writing team of queer, trans, and gender non-conforming people to ensure the show empowers…